Cambodia has abundant water resources in general, but it has a little water in the dry season. The increased dry season rice farming in many provinces, following the increased rice export policy in Cambodia and the spill-over effects of rice trade in Vietnam has led to high demands for water for dry season rice farming. These have led to water shortage and conflicts over water among farmers in the farming provinces, and between sectors, for instance, fishery and rice farming. Irrigation system development and improvement have improved water management and support to agricultural development. Rice farming areas have been expanded to around 2 million ha and rice farming has been increased from one rice crop to three rice crops a year. These have increased the high demand of waters for rice farming

Cambodia has abundant water resources in general, but it has a little water in the dry season. The increased dry season rice farming in many provinces, following the increased rice export policy in Cambodia and the spill-over effects of rice trade in Vietnam has led to high demands for water for dry season rice farming. These have led to water shortage and conflicts over water among farmers in the farming provinces, and between sectors, for instance, fishery and rice farming. Irrigation system development and improvement have improved water management and support to agricultural development. Rice farming areas have been expanded to around 2 million ha and rice farming has been increased from one rice crop to three rice crops a year. These have increased the high demand of waters for rice farming

This provides an overview of the second Mekong Hydropower Forum held in Hanoi, November 13-15, 2013.

In this study, we focus on water quality as a vehicle to illustrate the role that the water, energy, and food (WEF) Nexus perspective may have in promoting ecosystem services in agriculture. The mediation of water quality by terrestrial systems is a key ecosystem service for a range of actors (municipalities, fishers, industries, and energy providers) and is reshaped radically by agricultural activity. To address these impacts, many programs exist to promote improved land-use practices in agriculture; however, where these practices incur a cost or other burden to the farmer, adoption can be low unless some form of incentive is provided (as in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) program). Provision of such incentives can be a challenge to sustain in the long term, if there is not a clear beneficiary or other actor willing to provide them. Successfully closing the loop between impacts and incentives often requires identifying a measurable and valuable service with a clear central beneficiary that is impacted by the summative effects of the diffuse agricultural practices across the landscape. Drawing on cases from our own research, we demonstrate how the WEF Nexus perspective—by integrating non-point-source agricultural problems under well-defined energy issues—can highlight central beneficiaries of improved agricultural practice, where none may have existed otherwise.

River, lake, floodplains and farmland produce foods to sustain livelihoods of communities for many generations. Given the increased population and development needs, these food production land-waterscapes have been so-called developed and transformed into specialized and controlled landscapes, claiming at increasing the management and improved productivities. These have induced the disconnection between rivers, floodplains, lakes and farmlands. Policy and institutional frameworks have been attached to these land-waterscapes. Irrigation systems have been built, cutting across the rivers, floodplains and landscapes and claiming to provide water to irrigate and improve rice farming across countries. Fishery domain has been managed into CFis and CFRs, claiming to protect and conserve fish for foods for rural population who live dependent on these resources for generations. However, fishery resources have affected by the irrigation development and rice farming, leading to decline in fish production.

River, lake, floodplains and farmland produce foods to sustain livelihoods of communities for many generations. Given the increased population and development needs, these food production land-waterscapes have been so-called developed and transformed into specialized and controlled landscapes, claiming at increasing the management and improved productivities. These have induced the disconnection between rivers, floodplains, lakes and farmlands. Policy and institutional frameworks have been attached to these land-waterscapes. Irrigation systems have been built, cutting across the rivers, floodplains and landscapes and claiming to provide water to irrigate and improve rice farming across countries. Fishery domain has been managed into CFis and CFRs, claiming to protect and conserve fish for foods for rural population who live dependent on these resources for generations. However, fishery resources have affected by the irrigation development and rice farming, leading to decline in fish production.

The water-energy-food nexus concept is criticized as not yet fit for deeply integrated and contested governance agendas. One problem is how to achieve equitable risk governance and management where there is low consensus on priorities, poor inclusion and coordination of risk assessment procedures, and a weak emphasis placed on cross-scale and sectoral interactions over time. Participatory system dynamics modeling processes and analyses are promising approaches for such challenges but are currently underutilized in nexus research and policy. This paper shares our experience implementing one such analysis in the Mekong river basin, a paradigmatic example for international nexus research. Our transdisciplinary research design combined participatory causal loop diagramming processes, scenario modeling, and a new resilience analysis method to identify and test anticipated water-energy-food risks in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces in northeastern Cambodia. Our process generated new understanding of potential cross-sectoral and cross-level risks from major hydropower development in the region. The results showed expected trade-offs between national level infrastructure programs and local level food security, but also some new insights into the effects local population increases may have on local food production and consumption even before hydropower developments are built. The analysis shows the benefit of evaluating risks in the nexus at different system levels and over time because of how system dynamics and inflection points are taken into account. Additionally, our case illustrates the contribution participatory system-thinking processes can make to risk assessment procedures for complex systems transitions. We originally anticipated that any new capacity reported by partners and participants would come from our modeling results produced at the end of the process. However, participants in the modeling procedures also found the experience powerful the information sharing, rapid risk assessment, and personal learning it enabled. A lesson from our experience reinforces a message from the transdisciplinary research field that has not yet been absorbed into the nexus research and policy field wholeheartedly: we do not have to wait for perfect data and incontestable results before making a positive contribution to anticipating and responding to risks that emerge from nexus relations if we apply participatory and systems-thinking informed approaches.

Water is central for a variety of livelihoods, development, economic growth, and food production. It is also very important in the large deltas of South and Southeast Asia. Yet, water is turning into a scare resource and global climate change is making its availability more unpredictable. Commercial interests and infrastructure development are also competing for water resources, sometimes at the expense of local smallholders. This report, which is a desk study combined with stakeholder interviews, aims to map out the issues and the previously unknown challenges to efficient water and land management for poverty alleviation and food security. It also serves as a basis for an empirical case study on the same topic. The report illuminates the political economy of land-water resources in the floodplains around the Tonle Sap Lake which constitutes the upper part of the Mekong River Delta and shares seasonal fluctuations and livelihood patterns. The report identifies key challenges for land-water integrity and multi-functionality in food security, nutrition and income impacts for different local producers. The versatile delta landscape and its livelihoods are a complex ecosystem; the driving factors include seasonal water flow variations, the construction of upper Mekong dams, climate change, and the minimal regulations of local resource governance. This evidently makes the governance challenge both immense and urgent. This report maps out opportunities from national to local levels for promoting more systematic, productive and inclusive land-water management. The roles of formal and informal actors within political spaces, their influence on policy and practice, and opportunities to influence these actors are of particular interest. In pursuing the above, the report applies a political economy approach, where the role of the state, its policies and resource allocation are in focus. This also includes the presence of politically and commercially vested interests and how civil society is involved in the general strife for food security and poverty alleviation. The political economy approach constitutes a holistic analysis of how a society is governed and who possesses and utilises which power in order to pursue their interests. At the core of the political economy approach is therefore the illumination of power (and powerlessness) through analysis of actors or a group of actors and their particular interests. The empirical realms in this report focus on contemporary resource management, its institutions and actors.